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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25801219">Histories</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbinflowers/pseuds/Dustbinflowers'>Dustbinflowers</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fargo (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Pre-Relationship, Trans Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:22:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25801219</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dustbinflowers/pseuds/Dustbinflowers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Numbers has been with Fargo for several years when he is put on a job that requires a partner.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mr. Numbers &amp; Mr. Wrench (Fargo)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Histories</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey lovely people, I hope you are well. Here on the edge of the sub-Antarctic there are the first signs of spring...<br/>I've just been playing around with Wrench and Number's histories. I wanted to give a nod to Tripoli's influences on their lives, both known and unknown.<br/>This one is not smutty, but knowing me I will write another chapter, because I do tend to go there. I'll continue to edit after posting. most likely.<br/>Please note, Numbers is trans in this fic, if you are not a fan, please feel free not to read</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Numbers unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside. Closing and locking the door behind him, he sighed. Mmmm, warm. He’d been in the new place almost three weeks and having good central heating was still a novelty. The place was small, but it was an actual apartment, with a bathroom, a kitchenette, and even windows. It was the first place he’d had that wasn’t a piece of shit room with a shared scummy bathroom down the hall. Numbers was feeling pretty much like he finally had his shit together.</p><p>He crossed the lounge to the screened off bedroom and took off his coat and jacket, hung them in the wardrobe, toed off his shoes and lined them up. The black sports bag, heavy with the tools of his trade, went on the floor of the wardrobe at the back. He really needed to figure out a better place to keep his stuff than a sports bag with some gym gear on top hiding the array of weaponry. Maybe he’d ask one of the guys at work what they did- he was more inclined to talk to them now, and they him. They had pretty much stopped calling him kid since he’d started doing some field work. The beard really coming in in the last year and a half probably helped too, he thought, and grinned to himself. Fuck yeah.</p><p>After the September job, where he had dealt with everything going unexpectedly to shit during a routine pickup, he started getting something like professional respect from the other guys. Before that he was the young fella who did creative accounting and anomaly spotting for the syndicate, and who was good for deliveries, pickups and a bit of surveillance. On the night of the job, four hours late for his check in, he contacted Jurgen at two-thirty am with a request for a pick up. Two hours later Jurgen had picked him up himself, six miles across country from where the panel shop now fiercely burned, toxic paint-fuelled flames illuminating the industrial park. Several oxy-acetylene tanks had gone up. There were four bodies in the blaze, none with bullets. Number’s car was in there too, plateless and untraceable. Numbers had dumped the plates in a small treed gully while walking across dark farmland.</p><p>The Australian had been uncharacteristically speechless at the amount of blood Numbers was covered in.</p><p>“Any of that yours?” he’d asked, looking sidelong at him as he drove down side streets towards a motel where Numbers would hunker down for a couple of days.</p><p>Numbers had shaken his head. The blood matted in his hair and beard, from where he’d slashed the throat of the guy on top of him, was congealing and stiffening. He had been able to taste it too. Later, Jurgen would regale the others with how he’d picked Numbers up on the side of a dark country road, and that when he got in the car he appeared completely covered in blood, with only his eyes showing white through the gore. “Even his teeth! Like something from a fucking werewolf movie mate!”</p><p>Anyway, after that he wasn’t called kid any more. The others nodded to him, referred to him as Mr Numbers, his name with the syndicate. He’d even gone out for a beer with a few of them. More field work had started to come his way, and his paycheck suddenly looked good.</p><p> </p><p>Numbers went into the tiny bathroom and turned the shower on. Even with the fan on the room instantly steamed up. He figured he should crack the window but he found the mistiness calming. From long habit he liked not being able to see himself undressing, even though these days he finally looked like he was meant to. Some days he even thought he looked good without clothes on. Fuck, that was a far cry from the angry little bastard he’d been at fifteen. Shit. twelve years and two deadnames later. He really was finally a different person.</p><p>A tinge of melancholy, but he stepped into the hot water and washed it away. No, stuff was pretty good, on the whole.</p><p>He dried off and chucked on some sweat pants and an old band shirt. Contemplated making something to eat, but settled for a beer out of the fridge instead.</p><p>Collapsing onto his bed he turned the tv on, then noticed his phone flashing. The text was from Jurgen.</p><p>
  <strong>8am @ the office Beardo! </strong>
</p><p>New job, he guessed.</p><p> </p><p>Jurgen was as perky as ever the next morning.</p><p>Numbers slouched in his chair in the meeting room and scowled at him as he bounced around.</p><p>“Fuck man,how many coffees have you had?” Jurgen shrugged</p><p>“Coffee does nothing for me,” he answered “I’m just a box of fluffies.”</p><p>Numbers didn’t know what a box of fluffies was, but he wasn’t going to ask the Australian. From experience it meant a fifteen minute anecdote, usually including wild venamous animals, extreme drunkeness, large knives and nasty sexual acts. It was just too early for that right now.</p><p>Numbers took a gulp of the staffroom instant coffee that tasted like cereal and battery acid.</p><p>“So what’s this job?” he asked. Jurgen grinned.</p><p>“It’s some surveillance and recovery. Up near the border. Not until the end of the week though. I want you to meet your partner first.”</p><p>“What?!” Numbers sat upright “I don’t need a fucking partner!”</p><p>Jurgen held up his hands.</p><p>“Not my decision mate,” he said. “The Boss wants you guys working on this together. It’s a more complex job- you’ve fucking been promoted.”</p><p>Numbers wasn’t happy. Suddenly he wanted a cigarette. God he was going to be stuck in some snowy wasteland for days with a moron. Or a red-neck. Or a psychopath. Great. The buzzer went from reception, and Jurgen grinned at him, unaware or uncaring how pissed Numbers was. Probably uncaring- for all that Jurgen came off as the King’s Fool and All Round Annoying Fuckwit, he didn’t miss much.</p><p>“That’ll be our bloke,” he said, “Back in a tick.”</p><p>He left the room, leaving Numbers grinding his teeth.</p><p>He was fiddling with his cigarette packet when the door opened again. Jurgen grinned his unhinged smile at him, and motioned to the desk. Behind him a tall man entered. Numbers took a look at him as he sat down. Took in the fringed tan buckskin jacket, blue jeans and cowboy boots. The shaggy red- blonde hair and sideburns. Well yee-haw. Then the guy made eye contact and he was uncomfortably trapped by his green-eyed gaze for a moment.</p><p>“Hey,” Numbers said, and held out his hand. The guy shook his hand, fingers warm on his cold knuckles.</p><p>“Now that’s not so bad is it?” said Jurgen, grinning at them both. “Mr Numbers, this is Mr Wrench. You are going to be working together up near Devils Lake.”</p><p>He chucked a folder on the table. Before Numbers could move Wrench grabbed it.</p><p>“There’s all your info. At this stage you’ll be heading up on Saturday, do a reccy on Sunday, and be settled in for the week to see what our mates are up to. Thinking four days, but you’ll report in every couple of days and let me know if you need longer.”</p><p>Jurgen sat back.</p><p>“So take today and tomorrow to get to know the job. And each other.” he leered. “Any questions?”</p><p>Next to him Wrench pulled out a notepad and pen. Scrawled quickly and pushed the pad over to Jurgen. Numbers squinted, and read his writing, sideways as it was to him.</p><p>
  <strong>Car supplied? Or mine?</strong>
</p><p>“Yours,” answered Jurgen, “Normal gas and mileage as per contractor rates. Same goes with equipment and consumables. Itemised costs at the end.”</p><p>Wrench nodded, took his pad and sat back, his long fingers worrying the edges of the manila folder. Numbers looked between him and Jurgen.</p><p>“Wait,” he said, “Is he- Are you deaf?”</p><p>Wrench frowned at him. Raised his hands.</p><p>
  <em>He said you sign.</em>
</p><p>Numbers read him fine, despite how long it had been since he had used ASL. He nodded, then grimaced, shook his head. With difficulty he dredged up the signs from memory.</p><p>
  <em>Yes. But a long time ago.. I’ve forgotten… </em>
</p><p>Wrench shrugged.</p><p>
  <em> You’ll remember soon. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>They decided to go through the job over a coffee from the diner down the road.</p><p>Wrench got straight to business, reading the notes rapidly, scribbling ideas and queries on the pad, signing to ask Number’s opinion. Numbers drank his coffee and tried to dredge up ASL from the depths of memory and ten- no twelve years.</p><p>As he watched the other man’s fast choppy signs,and stumbled over his answers, he was suddenly struck by his height, his age, his reddish hair, and those green eyes.</p><p>“Fuck”, said Numbers aloud as realisation grew. He stared at Wrench over his coffee. That gaze, those long-fingered hands. That familiar signing style from so long ago.</p><p>Wrench frowned at him.</p><p><em> What?</em> He asked.</p><p><em> You’re-</em> Numbers hesitated at signing Wrench’s deadname. It was essentially that. He of all people knew the weight of bringing up old painful history.</p><p>-<em>Wes</em></p><p>As he signed the childhood name sign Wrench drew in his breath and sat back. He stared at Numbers hard. Slowly he brought his hands up, frowning questioningly.</p><p>
  <em> Grady? </em>
</p><p>Numbers nodded. That old familiar knot of anxiety suddenly twisted in his stomach.</p><p><em> No more.</em> he answered, his hands chopping clumsily. <em>Grady is dead.</em></p><p><em>Wes</em>- Wrench nodded slowly. He kept looking at Numbers, and Numbers remembered how much it used to annoy him.</p><p><em>You-</em> he paused a long moment. <em>You are so different. </em></p><p>Numbers exhaled. It was about the nicest thing Wrench could have said.</p><p>“Yeah.” he said, and grinned. One of the wolfish grins he had spent years cultivating, to unnerve others. He picked up the mug of coffee and drained it, thumped the cup back onto the table. There was a warm feeling bubbling in his gut.</p><p><em> Hairy</em> Wrench signed, then suddenly grinned back.</p><p> </p><p>It was much later, and they were back at Number’s place, having bought beers on the way from the diner. They sat with their backs against the wall on the bed, because that was where the tv was. On the screen up on the wall was some old movie that was on. There were captions, but they hadn’t been following it.</p><p><em>So what happened, after I went into juve?</em> asked Wrench. He reached out and grabbed another beer, cracked it and took a long sip, his eyes still on Numbers. He put the can down again, kept signing.</p><p>
  <em>When I got out I came back, your mom said you had taken off and she didn’t know where you were. She was angry, like it was my fault.</em>
</p><p>Numbers grimaced, remembering the time after the incident.</p><p><em> I kinda went off the rails,</em> he signed slowly. <em>I wanted to be in there too. </em></p><p><em>That was never going to happen.</em> shrugged Wrench. Numbers nodded</p><p><em> I was really fucking angry, he said. About everything, you know- </em>he gestured at his body.<em> I did a lot of dumb stuff, got in with shit people, and finally, about nine months after you left, I ran awa</em>y.</p><p><em> Where?</em> Asked Wrench.</p><p>Numbers spread his hands. <em>All over. I went over to Detroit, then Chicago. Did all kinds of stuff. Got into a troubled youth program, saw a psychiatrist. They got me on the path to t-r-a-n-s-I-t-I-o-n-I-n-g, and found me a job. </em></p><p><em>That’s a long time still between then and now.</em> said Wench.</p><p>Numbers shrugged. How to sum up the last ten years?</p><p><em>I fell into a job with one of Fargo’s-</em> he hesitated, trying to think of the right words -<em>smaller offices. I found a big problem with some numbers, which showed Fargo was getting screwed. Showed the boss. A couple of months later I got invited to this lunch. Ten guys sitting around a table, didn’t know any of them. I was pretty sure I was going to be shot. Then, about an hour and a half into listening to this weasally Australian guy talk shit, the big guy, the boss suddenly looked straight at me and asked me to come and work for them. That’s how I ended up working for Fargo.</em></p><p>Numbers didn’t mention the two years he’d spent saving up for the surgery, approaching them to organise time off for a back operation. Didn’t mention going through the whole thing by himself for the two weeks off work. Or about finding out that the operation had been paid for by Fargo. He still didn’t know whether Tripoli knew what the surgery had been for, or why he would have paid for it. He tried not to think about it.</p><p><em> What about you?</em> asked Numbers. <em>What did you do when you got out? </em></p><p>Wrench shrugged</p><p><em> No accounting,</em> he signed, then grinned, <em>You were always shit at maths! </em></p><p>Numbers laughed. “I know right?”</p><p>
  <em>I mostly worked fixing cars around the place. Ended up in a place that was doing conversions. Fargo was a customer, then Fargo took over. They thought I had better uses than a mechanic. I’ve been doing work for them for two years now, he said. Mostly just going with others to be the muscle.</em>
</p><p><em> Silent and scary huh?</em> said Numbers. He grinned, and reached for another beer.</p><p><em> Just a big dumb scary guy,</em> answered Wrench, his face deadpan. <em>No fancy lunches for me.</em></p><p>Numbers rolled his eyes at him from behind his beer bottle.</p><p><em>You’re not dumb,</em> he said <em>Big and ugly. But smart.</em></p><p>Hot as all fuck his brain said silently, and he remembered the hopeless gut- twisting crush he had had over Wes way back then. Desperate for touch but unable to let anyone near him.</p><p><em>You are a rude shit, just like always.</em> Said Wrench. <em>I am hot!</em> He grinned drunkenly at Numbers, who grinned back, feeling a twist in his guts.</p><p><em>So,</em> said Wrench, gazing at him, <em>are you that hairy everywhere, pretty boy?  </em></p><p>It took a moment for Numbers to figure out the sign. He snorted, felt his cheeks go hot</p><p><em>Fucking everywhere.</em> he said.</p><p>Wrench was still a long moment, looking at him.</p><p><em> Can I see?</em> He asked finally.</p><p>Numbers laughed with a bravado he didn’t feel. His heart began hammering in his chest.</p><p>“I’m not showing you my ass.” he said out loud and began to unbutton his shirt.</p><p>Then he was shrugging out of his shirt ,pulling the singlet over his head, his chest bare. The ghost of an old panic rose.</p><p>Following Wrench’s gaze, he glanced down at his chest. Flat, nipples half lost in dark chest hair, tattoos half visible. He looked up and met Wrench’s eyes defiantly.</p><p><em>You look amazing,</em> said Wrench. <em>Like I thought you would.</em> His face was serious. <em>I used to wonder where you were. What you were doing. If you were happy. </em></p><p><em>I used to do the same,</em> answered Numbers. He paused, then hesitantly reached out to squeeze Wrench’s shoulder a moment. <em>I fucking missed you man.</em></p><p>Wrench twisted around and put his arms around him. Numbers was enveloped by his presence, his smell, his warmth. It was at once familiar and not. Numbers closed his eyes and leaned in.</p><p>After a moment they separated awkwardly. Leaned back against the wall and stared up at the flickering tv. Whatever movie had been on had finished, now the dead of night infomercials played.</p><p>Wrench sighed, looked at the empty bottles on the bedside table next to him.</p><p>
  <em> I should go home. </em>
</p><p><em>Take the couch,</em> said Numbers, <em>You don’t want to get pulled over the night before a job. </em></p><p>Wrench considered a moment, then nodded. Numbers sat up and stretched</p><p>“I’ll find you a blanket.” he said out loud, then signed <em>Blanket and pillow.</em></p><p> </p><p>Lying awake in the dark, Numbers listened to Wrench getting comfortable on the couch. A few minutes later the snoring started and Numbers sighed.</p>
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